You know, if you really want to feature some highly skilled – and VERY bizarre – sword fighting, the Rajahs of India should be the subject of your novel. There’s one kind of highly flexible, long sword that doubles as a whip.
Yikes.
Anyway, let’s move onto the medieval, Roman and Viking swords. Roman and Viking swords are often the same thing, essentially. Yesterday, I saw a film of a man take an unsharpened Viking sword, and stab it straight through a tire hanging from a rope.
That’s a really good sword design if an unsharpened one will pierce through like that.
Short swords, such as Viking and Roman, tend towards stabbing motions. Yes, there’s the butterfly motion cuts – and those swords are remarkably agile for exactly that.
The Roman was not too worried about his short sword against the longer swords of his enemies of that time – he had a shield he could hide behind. And the Roman shield was tremendous. The Roman learned a combination of moves – shield slam into the opponent, a sideways motion of the shield, and a quick hack and stab with the sword, turn to the next one.
Four moves. The Germanic tribes were unprepared for it. Romans tore through them, and the Gauls. Only problem was when the Roman legions went off to fight the Scythians, and left Rome unprotected, and the Gauls wandered into Rome.
Anyway. Never slap a French man, is the probable moral of that story (look it up!).
The Vikings of course had a similar fighting style to the Romans, but relied upon stealth to creep into a village, then attack with blood curdling screams and yells. By the time you were awake, you were butchered.
Except the Vikings didn’t have good foot wear. I’m not kidding. When they invaded the lowlands of Scotland, one stepped on a Scottish thistle. He did what anyone would do, and shrieked in pain.
Only a few of the Vikings made it to their boats. So if you’re writing a Vikings versus the Scots story… The Scots win.
Vikings invaded America according to Norse history. After a few years battling the elements and the native tribes, the Vikings turned tail and ran.
The essential moves with the short sword are simple – the butterfly. It’s essentially a figure 8. Add a stab at the end. I’m sure the users manual read this:
Ye sworde…. Cutt like this – 8.
Medieval. There’s a million different swords in the Renaissance and medieval category. Long thin rapiers dominated the Renaissance era – thicker, long two handed blades dominated the Medieval.
While some medieval blades may have been works of art (Italy), others were cheap, mass produced swords. A Knight often had to outfit himself with lance, sword and shield. British knights tended towards one handed swords, Scots and Irish towards hand-and-a-half to two hand swords – the Claymore being the most popular. Interestingly enough, the middle eastern Chopper blade found its way into Braveheart – I’m not sure how historical that was! The chopper looks like a sword with a nose at the end – designed to hack at someone at the very end of their reach. It also was shaped to rip away a shield with an upward cut.
The Claymore was an armored foe’s worst nightmare. Chain mail caught and deflected sword tip strikes – but it was useless against the claymore. Two handed, long, and double edged, it hit like a hammer and often was sharpened to a thin edge. I never owned one of the two handed variety, but I did own a basket hilt one. Thick in the center, and two VERY sharp edges. A Scottish Claymore could ruin your whole day.
Man, the Culloden basket hilt Claymore was one heavy weapon. Just lifting it and holding it towards an opponent was a work out.
Interestingly, something the British never expected was that the heavier Claymores actually out-performed their battle rig. The knight had to depend upon his sword and shield – but the first blow from a Claymore on the shield often broke the knight’s arm. The Highland Scots – descended from a marriage between Vikings and Pictish warriors – ended to be stockier and more upper body strength than most British knights. The Scot tended towards a whirling upper body motion to SLAM the Claymore into the British shield. Look at the Scottish tapestries – you’ll see many of the Highlanders are twisted away from the people they are fighting.
Now, with either a deadened and temporarily useless (or broken) arm, the knight had to defend with his one handed sword against the Claymore. The word Stirling brings up memories of the British army’s inability to defend against that. The smarter knights simply ditched their shields and fought only with the sword, and stood a better chance.
Other, more spread out battles tipped the battle in the British favor, because the knights had more room to move, and cavalry as well. But under Robert The Bruce, Scotland settled once and for all whose sword was better.
The French and the Italians began to move to longer, thinner blades. Knights were going broke trying to keep up with buying armor, chain mail, habergeons,etc, etc. So they began to ditch the armor, and adopt thinner swords.
The Knights of England found their heavier one hand sword couldn’t keep up with the more accurate sword work of the rapier, and soon the Knights were hanging up their costly and stinky armor. Rapiers were often fancy, ornate weapons. you could afford a nice sword now that you didn’t worry about shield and 85 pounds of leather, cloth and armor!
Medieval sword fighting is not as cheesy as it sounded – it was highly developed. German sword fighting depended for instance on block the oncoming strike, SLIDE the sword around the inside guard and cut across the attacker.
The Ballestra move features a spin motion of the hands to get the sword around the guard, and then pushing off the front foot to skewer the hapless person attacking you.
German fighting moves include an upward block, and a kick to push the onrushing opponent away.
Or grab the end of the blade with a chain mail clad hand and a knee strike into the groin of your attacker.
Blocking also involves a sideways turn, then slamming the pommel or hilt of the sword into the nose of the attacker, then reverse the sword. Oh, and since you just reversed it, you just took off the legs of the stunned attacker.
There were trapping and disarming moves – great for a scene where you’re fighting someone you don’t want to kill.
The German sword fighter wasn’t so concerned with STOPPING the attacker as in MISDIRECTING or GETTING AROUND the attacker – and they were fast at it. By the time you realized what they were doing, you felt fire radiating along your body from a massive wound as you bled to death.
And if the Germans were doing it, the rest of Europe were following suit.
